In Which I Again Diet in the Yarn Sense

It was time for another yarn diet, she sadly realized, staring around her living room. For, gentle reader, the yarn had not only taken over a wall of the den where it was supposed to live but it was launching an unorganized invasion of the living room.

There was yarn in sorted boxes, which had been cataloged and organized and posted with full admission of stash to Ravelry. That yarn hadn't even been touched since said posting because, well, it was sorted and who wants to mess up something already neatly tucked away. But in a heap was the yarn that followed her home from when her sister came to visit in the first week of April. The yarn that was supposed to have been knitted up promptly into baby gifts and sent out again. And in the purchase bags and tissue paper was the yarn from her last two trips to Chicago where she summarily hauled a patient friend in as she squeaked over the new colors and then returned only a couple of weeks later for just one more skein--or 10. On the coffee table lounged the gorgeous skeins from the online independent dealer who has such wonderful colorways. The cone of lace weight sat beside the laptop being ignored now that half of it had gone to live with AudioGirl. The newly started lace scarf and the drop stitch shawl that had to be finished for a rapidly approaching birthday flopped inelegantly beside the futon. Three pairs of mitts that just needed thumbs were scattered throughout the current projects basket, the new yarn, and everywhere else.

There were just so many colors and types of yarn and so much potential.

And she realized yet again she was compensating. As other girls bought clothes and magazines to fit in, she was buying yarn, looking to be just a little bit further into a "cool crowd." Some would scoff at the notion of the use of knitting and cool in the same sentence but it was her sanity--that simple repetitive habit that created so many beautiful objects. Did she really need the latest sock yarn update? No...and she'd managed to stop buying a week or so before. But something more formal need to be negotiated with her stash.

Summer Reading was starting soon, could she make it to the end of that without yarn purchases? That would get her through the hottest part of the year without more wool warming up the apartment. It would keep her from binging on silk on days when she just couldn't sing another round of Itsy Bitsy Spider. It might prevent the wholesale buying of pounds of dishcloth cotton (maybe). This sounded reasonable.

And how much would be her goal to knit up? For those babies were going to be born and grow whether the yarn get knitted or not--and she bought it with those babies in mind. But the goal for these summer months would be three pounds of yarn. That would at least get the equivalent of her last purchase out the door so her stash would stay at an "even" level. Sort of. Any more than that would just be deserving of a very large banana split--assuming she could find somewhere in small town USA that made most excellent banana splits. It would not get a yarn reward because, well...wasn't the point to use up some of this yarn?

She would, however, start a spreadsheet of things that look yarntabulous to buy. At the end of the summer that could be revisited to see a) if still available in the color wanted b) do I really have a project in mind or just binge wool buying c) had I had a bit much of the sock yarn Koolaid. Considering she doesn't at present knit or wear hand knit socks.....

In the week preceding up to summer reading kick off stash must be photographed and organized--the rest of it so that she could fully admit how much she owned. And projects needed to be ziplocked and prepared.

Oh...and the rest of life needed to be seen to also.